Thursday, December 24, 2009

The Decade's Best: #71-#80

Just like last time, a new filmmaker crashes the list with not one but two titles, and this time it's somebody that no one had even heard of till 2000 rolled around. Also, though it's unlikely to faze anyone else, I'm excited to have two films in this bracket that I never imagined would wind up on a list like this when I first saw themone that I thought was perfectly fine but not much more than that (it's at #78), and one that I practically hated, even though I respected its proficiency. In that case, you won't have any trouble figuring out which title I have in mind.

5 Comments:

This list convinces me I really need to see a film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul sooner than later. They're so impossible to find over here though! Argh.

Couldn't agree more with Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. I first saw it 9 years ago when I was 10 and thought it was just an awesome martial arts film with women. I watch it now, older and only slightly wiser, and see it to be perhaps the most feminist film of the decade? Which is a bold statement in itself.

LOVE the inclusion of The Bourne Supremacy. It's my favourite of the trilogy and the only one I ever have a desire to revisit.

I still hate Syndromes and a Century, and I find it wonderful that the only parts of Fat Girl I liked are, indeed, the final 15 minutes or so which plays out like some deranged, frightening nightmare sequence (that ominous car drive!)

You must have known #78 would feel like a Christmas present, especially since it was stamped with a B until a few months ago! Superb. And we are the unofficial Bourne Supremacy > Ultimatum action group around here. I'm guessing one more Joe entry higher up, and maybe one more Ang, but maybe not...

@Himiko: Welcome to the site! Where is "over here" for you? I obviously do recommend the Weerasethakul films, though I'd recommend starting with Blissfully Yours or maybe Tropical Malady.

@Glenn: Glad you're psyched about Supremacy though I knew the Syndromes inclusion would bug you. You've got a gift on the way in the next installment.

@Tim: Supremacy > Ultimatum all the way, and imagine what a present I feel like I got from being prompted to re-examine what I thought was a "B" movie and discovering so much more to appreciate than I'd seen. Thanks for "giving" me that movie!

@Lev: See above, and I do think the films all play terrifically on the big screen. The one I talk about least is Mysterious Object at Noon, his sort of hilariously off-the-cuff, pseudo-documentary debut about an endless, improvised "folk tale," and I think it's totally charming. He went to film school here in Chicago, so I hear tell that his student shorts are hiding somewhere around the city...

Reading the Bromance: Homosocial Relationships in Film and Television ($32/pbk). Ed. Michael DeAngelis. Wayne State University Press, 2014.
Academic pieces that dig into recent portraits in popular media, comic and dramatic, of intimacies between straight(ish) men. Includes the essay
"'I Love You, Hombre': Y tu mamá también as Border-Crossing Bromance" by Nick Davis, as well as chapters on Superbad, Humpday, Jackass, The Wire, and other texts. Written for a mixed audience of scholars, students, and non-campus readers. Forthcoming in June 2014. "Remarkably sophisticated essays." Janet Staiger, "Essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary models of gender and sexuality." Harry Benshoff

Fifty Key American Films ($31/pbk). Ed. Sabine Haenni, John White. Routledge, 2009. Includes my essays on
The Wild Party,
The Incredibles, and
Brokeback Mountain. Intended as both a newcomer's guide to the terrain
and a series of short, exploratory essays about such influential works as The Birth of a Nation, His Girl Friday, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song,
Taxi Driver, Blade Runner, Daughters of the Dust, and Se7en.

The Cinema of Todd Haynes: All That Heaven
Allows ($25/pbk). Ed. James Morrison. Wallflower Press, via Columbia University Press, 2007. Includes the essay
"'The Invention of a People': Velvet Goldmine and the Unburying of Queer Desire" by Nick Davis, later expanded and revised in The Desiring-Image.
More, too, on Poison, Safe, Far From Heaven, and Haynes's other films by Alexandra Juhasz, Marcia Landy,
Todd McGowan, James Morrison, Anat Pick, and other scholars. "A collection as intellectually and emotionally
generous as Haynes' films" Patricia White, Swarthmore College

Film Studies:
The Basics ($23/pbk). By Amy Villarejo. Routledge, 2006, 2013. Award-winning
film scholar and teacher Amy Villarejo finally gives us the quick, smart, reader-friendly guide to film vocabulary that every
teacher, student, and movie enthusiast has been waiting for, as well as a one-stop primer in the past, present, and future of film production, exhibition,
circulation, and theory. Great glossary, wide-ranging examples, and utterly unpretentious prose that remains rigorous in its analysis;
the book commits itself at every turn to the artistry, politics, and accessibility of cinema.

Most recent screenings in each race;
multiple nominees appear wherever they scored their most prestigious nod...
and yes, that means Actress trumps Actor!

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